Hi John
1 Dec. you said:
> You said something of interest here which I want to use to amplify a
> disagreement I have:
Then how can the MOQ - as intellect - employ SOM unless
SOM becomes "social" which it clearly isn't.
> SOM is born of social reasoning.
The 4th.level (SOM) is born from the 3rd. - no disagreement there, but
"born of social reasoning"? Reason or rationality indicates an
objective, intellectual attitude while the social ditto is emotional. Yet,
people before the 4th. level surely had a purpose for their actions ...as
we have when on that plane: because we love or hate, feel obligations,
sees as out duty ... and so on.
> Before there can be a society, there must be a relationship between
> self and other.
That's obvious, but the self/other distinction is something deeper than
than the social "individual/other individuals", it's biology, its immune
system is based on a "self/not-self" recognition.
> Taking this self/other dichotomy as fundamental is SOM.
Yes.
> It's the most rudimentary metaphysical stance there is.
Listen John. The MOQ postulates the "upper level born of the lower"
yet the morality of the upper is a total break with its parent, thus
intellect or SOM - is not found on the social level. It's purpose was to
rid existence of the subjective, emotional, superstitious past (that we
know as the social level)
> Now, if this self/other dichotomy is taken as fundamental,
The professor must expound: The intellectual level (in the Western
world, the Eastern I leave here) did not emerge as any "self/other-as-
fundamental" movement, but as the notion of principles that
transcended the old social, mythological reality. This ended with the
notion of Truth (the master-principle) which Socrates pitted against
Apparent (whatever distorts Truth) a dichotomy they regarded as
fundamental. This proto S/O then started its snowballing of ever more
complex and new dichotomies until Descartes when a abyss opened
between one mind and another mind. From then on began SOM's
troubles - the empiricists, then Kant and after him philosophy threw up
its hands and declared reality inscrutable. And there things stood until
Pirsig entered the scene.
> then everything works according to mechanistic laws of interaction and
> the highest value is unconsciously (as in science )or consciously (as
> in Randian individualism) assigned to the self. This perversion of
> morality sees nothing wrong with fudging data to promote academic or
> professional careers, because after all, when it comes down to it, it's
> all about the me.
This really is philosophy after Kant. All kinds of theories either going to
the subjective extreme or the objective extreme. No one daring to
confront the SOM - not KNOWING any SOM - everyone believing that
the mind/matter schism was how existence had been assembled "at
the factory".
> The MoQ analyzes this value system and finds it wanting because the
> self is meaningless without a social and environmental context to
> define and nurture ...
Yes, the intellectual level's self-mind (isolated from other self-minds
and from the world) is meaningless without the social level, which is
meaningless without the biological, which is meaningless without the
inorganic level.
> ....and thus it is the value of the all over the individual that
> brings us to enlightenment.
This was a bit cryptic, but if your "all over the individual " is social value
it surely was a prerequisite for intellectual enlightenment, like intellect
was necessary for the QUALITY ENLIGHTENMENT.
> Now if I could just convince Ham. Just kidding. I'll roll that rock to
> the top of the hill once or twice, but when it always rolls back on me,
> I quit.
Your stone-rolling comrade.
Bodvar
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